Fragametal

Fragametal is a family workshop in Dendermonde, Belgium, founded by Gabriël Eeckman in 1961 and now run by the third generation. They make custom metalwork, brass and bronze among it, from a single piece to a small series, for interior architects, designers, lighting firms, restorers and the funeral sector. Customers come with one question: can you make this, in which metal, and how many?

What I found

I checked it on 14 November 2026, on a laptop and a phone.

• The whole site is one page, with the Dutch and English text side by side in two columns.
• The page has no mobile viewport setting, so a phone shows it shrunk to roughly a third. Text of about 15 px ends up around 5 px on screen.
• Their 29 project photos carry captions such as "Messing gepatineerde spiegelkader" inside the image, with no alt text, so a search engine cannot tell that they make patinated brass or bronze door furniture.
• Their strongest credentials, 1961, "Erkend Ambacht" and "Handmade in Belgium", are small badges along the left edge.
• To enquire there is an email address and a phone number, which is not a link, so on a phone you cannot tap it. The browser tab reads "Paginatitel".

Decisions

Material and batch size in the first line

The headline builds on their line about custom metalwork and small series: "Maatwerk in messing en brons. Van één stuk tot kleine serie." Beside it is a technical drawing of a lever handle with a rose, drawn from their photo of a bronze handle. It draws itself once, sits next to a photo of the finished piece and is labelled as an illustration. Their three badges sit just below the buttons.

Work sorted by use

I sorted the same 29 photos into seven groups by use, from shop fitting and lighting to restoration and the funeral sector. The list of groups stays beside the photos as you scroll, and the captions are now text.

Processes as a drawing that follows the text

Their site mentions how they work only in passing. From the history and the captions I took four steps: casting, welding, finishing, and cleaning and repair. As the text scrolls, the drawing follows: metal pours from a crucible into a mould shaped like the lever handle, welds appear on a metal frame, the handle runs through seven finishes named on their site, from patina to lacquer, and a missing leaf on a rose is filled in. All are labelled as illustrations.

A work sheet instead of a blank email

The enquiry is five questions: what you need, material, finish, batch size and what you already have. As the customer chooses, a work sheet fills in with what is worth sending and three similar pieces from their workshop, then says it is ready to send. One click opens an email to info@fragametal.be with the whole enquiry, or fills in the contact form. There is no price, as it depends on the piece and the quantity.

Colour and the phone

The anthracite comes from their logo, with bronze kept for small marks and dimension lines. The concept is in Dutch; their current site also has English. On a phone the process drawing stays at the top while the steps scroll beneath it.

How it's built

Static HTML, CSS and JavaScript, no framework. The drawings are hand-written SVG, drawn by CSS on the first screen and by GSAP with ScrollTrigger in the process section, with Lenis for smooth scrolling. Without JavaScript all text stays visible; with reduced motion the drawings appear finished. The tool needs no server: the browser builds the enquiry and opens it through mailto. The photos are theirs, from the current site, and load as they come on screen. The page is noindex, and the JSON-LD holds only details from their site.

What I would do next

I would first check with Fragametal that their photos can be used and that the finishes and groups are right. A real project would add a form that accepts drawings and photos and sends without an email program, the English version they already have, and more photos per group.